Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-09-16
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject: "WOman's Specific
Rights"

ordinate, but queen; and in my text Solo
mon sees sixty of these helping to make up
the royal pageant of Jesus. In former SER
mon showed you that crown and courtly
attendants and imperial wardrobe were not
necessary to make queen but that graces
OF the heart and life will give coronation to
any woman. l Showed you at some length
that woman's position was higher in the world
than mans, and that although she had often
been denied the right of suffrage, she always
dld vote and always would vote by her infu-
ence; and that her chief desire ought to bs
mat she should have grace rightly to rule in
the dominion which she has already won.
began an enumeration OF some of her rights,
and this morning resume the subject.
In tue first place, woman has the special
and the superlative right-not again going
back to what | have already said-woman
has thes special and superlative right of bless
ing and comforting the sick.
what land, what street, what house has
not felt the smitings Of disease! Tens of
thousands of sick beds What shall we do
with thems Shall man, with his rough hand
and clumsy foot, go stumbling around the
sick room, trying to soothe the distracted
nerves and alleviate the pains of the tossing
patientf The young man at college may
scoif at the idea of being under maternal in
1uences, but at the first blast of tile typhoid
fever on his cheek he says: Where is
motherp Walter Scott wrote partly in
satire and parGly in compliment when lie said:
Owoman, in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy and hard to please:
When pain and anguish wiring the brow,
A minstering angel thou.
think the most pathetic passage in all the
Bible is the description Of the lad who went
out to the harvest field of Shunem and pot
sunstruck-throwing his hands on his stempleS
and crying out "Oh, my head My head !"
and they said: Garry him to his mother
And then the record is: He sat on her knees
till noon, and then died." 1t is an awful
thing to be i'll away from home in strange
hotel, once in while men coming in to look
at you, holding their hand over their mouth
for fear they will catch the contagion. How
roughly they turn you in bed How loudly
they talk. How you long for the ministries
or home. l knew one such who went away
from one of the brightest Of homes for
several weeks business absence at the West
A telegram came at midnight that he was
on his death bed, far away from home By
express train the wife and daughters went
westward; but they went too late He feared
not to die, but he was in agony to live until
his family got there He tried to bribe
tie doctor to make him live little
while longer He said: 81 am willing to die
but not alone" But the pulses fluttered the
eyes closed, and the heart stopped. The ex~
press trains met i'll the midnight wife and
daughters going westward-llfeess remains
OF husband and father coming eastward o,
it was sad, pitiful, overwhelming
spectacle! When we are sick we want
to be back at home. When the the
time comes for us to die, we want TO
die at home The room may be very
humble, and the faces that look into
ours may be very plain; but who cares for
thatf Loving hands to bathe the temples,
Loving voices to speak good cheer. Loving
lips to read the comforting promises of Jesus.
In our last dreadful war men cast the can
non; men fashioned the musketry men cried
to the hosts: Forward, march," men hurled
their battalions on the sharp edges of the
enemy. crying: Charge charged but woman
scraped the lint; woman administered the
cordlals; woman watched by the dying
couch; woman wrote the last message to the
nome circle: woman wept at the solitary
burial attended by herself and four men with
spade. We greeted the general homs
with brass bands, and triumphal arches.
and wild huzzas; but the story is too good to
be written anywhere, save in the chronicles
OF heaven, of Mrs Brady, who came down
among the sick in the swamps of the Chicha-
hominy; of Annie Ross, in the COOPER sbop
hosptal of Margaret Breckenridge who came
to men who had been for weeks with their
wounds undressed--some of them frozen to
the ground and when she turned them over
the air with their "hurrah;n - OF Mrs. Hodge,
who came from Chicago with blankets and
with pillows, until the men shouted: ''Three
cheers for the Christian Commission
God bless the women at home.r
then sitting down to take the last
message: Tell my wife not to fret
about me, but to meet me in heaven; tell her
to train up the boys whom we have love so
we'll; tell her we shall meet again in the good
land; tell her to bear my loss like the Chris
tlan wife of q Christian so!dier;" and of Mrs
Shelton, into whose face the convalescent
soldier looked and said: "Your grapes
and cologne cured rme.n Men did
their work with shot and shell, and carbine,
and howitzer; women did their work with
socks, and slippers and bandages and warm
drinks, and Scripture texts, and gentle strok-
1ngs of the hot temples, and stories of that
land where they never have any pain. Men
knelt down over the wounded and said: "On
which side did you fghti" Women knelt
down over the wounded and said: "Where
are you hurtl What nice thing can make
for you to eat9 What makes YOU cryf To-
night, while we men are sound asleep in our
beds, there will be light in yonder loft;
there will be groanipg down that dark allev'
there will be cries Of distress in that cellar
Men will sleep and women will watch.
Again, woman has a superlative right to
take care of the poor. There are hundreds
and thousands Of them all over the land.
There is q kind OF work that men cannot do
for the poor. Here comes group of little bare
foot children to the door of the Dorcas Socie-
ty. They need to be clothed and provided for.
Which of these directors of banks would
know how many yards it would take to make
that little girl dress? Which of these mas
culine hands could fit hat to that little
girls head Which of the wise men
would know how to tie on new pair of
shoesi Man sometimes gives his charity
In rough way, and it falls like the fruit
of tree in the east, which fruit comes
down so heavily that it breaks the skull
OF the man who is trying to gather it, But
woman glides so softly into the house of des-
tltution, and finds out all the sorrows of the
place, and puts so quietly the donation on the
table, that all the family come out on the
front steps as she departs, expecting that
from under her shawl She will thrust out two
wings and go right up toward heaven, from
whence she seems to have come down.
Oh, Christian young womanl if you
would make yourself happy and win
the blessings of Christ, go out among
the destitute. A loaf of bread or bundle OF
socks may make homely load to carry but
the angels of God will come out to watch,
and the Lord Almighty will give his mes
senger hosts charge, saying: Look after
that woman. Canopy her with your wings
and shelter her from all HARM" and while
you are seated in the house OF destitution and
suffering, the little Ones around the room
Will whisper: who is she! Amt she beau
tlfulp and il you will listen right sharply you
will hear dripping down through the leaky
roof, and rolling over the rotten stairs, the
angel chant that shook Bethlehem: "Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will TO men," Can you tell
me why a Christian woman going down
among the haunts OF iniquity on a Christian
errand never meets with any indignity9 |
stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the
daughter of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, in
the most abandoned part OF the city
of Edinburgh, and said to her as
looked out upon the fearful surround.
ings of that place: "Do you come here
ghts to hold serviceP 90 yes. -
she said "Can it be possible that you
uever meet with an insult while performing